Animatrix: A Few Good Men
by The Grandiloquent Demagogue
Summary: Written as if it could be a short from the Animatrix... the tale of the formation of a rather unconventional group of Agents.
1. Prologue

_**Animatrix: A Few Good Men**_

_**Prologue**_

_Eon's Lux_ was like any of the Merovingian's diurnal party palaces from his near-endless holdings in the City. Overcrowded, cloaked in a toxic miasma of psychoactive chemicals, and swarming with multitudes of gyrating and thrusting deviants, the "hottest fetish-freak scene west of Laid Humper" manifested in downtown like a miniature Southern Baptist's conception of Los Angeles. Its "101 Days of Sodom" fleshfests brought in untold crowds of the demented and the dancing, millions of dollars of profit, and more potential hosts for the little flavor programs the Merv dabbled in when he wasn't dealing in information or being a perv'.

But then law came through the shiny obsidian gates of _Eon's Lux_. To be precise, Lee came.

He arrived at the place at 0300 hours, at a near-climax of festivities, complemented by three squads of the finest officers his subdepartment could offer. Their instructions had been clear: _the unnamed proprietor of the place was somehow connected to the anonymous gang lord who for some apparent reason knew something that might have to do with the recent spontaneous human combustions in the city's deviant population. Shut it down._

Lee was methodical yet young and headstrong- an oxymoronic combination if there ever was one. So he had carefully planned out with his team which targets to hit first, what to confiscate and what to ignore for Forensics, where the startled guests would be fleeing, and what to do if A fails and how to operate if B doesn't got right and when to use J in conjunction with K, and so on.

They carried out the plan as soon as they arrived, while their leader brashly sought out the owner completely without escort.

Knowing the layout, Lee barreled across the crowded entrance hall the instant he had finished screaming "Police! Everybody down, now!" A quarter of the room complied while the rest continued in their drug-addled, leather-studded shuffling of limbs. While the main assault squad proceeded to taser and beat the hell out of anyone and everyone not following the order, Lee pushed through the throng, jumped on a nearby bar counter, and ran to and up the Gothic main staircase.

The guards of the outer court were no more than brute force bouncers who fell just as easily as the mail-order jujitsu would-be ninjas in the next rooms. In the fifth court Lee found himself opposed by a Nihonese nobleman in a kimono twirling a katana expertly. The doorman spun the blade, slicing through the air with an intimidating glare before the policeman went up to him and pistol-whipped him out of his misery.

The next room was a hall, devoid of parties as all of the courts before. Lee could feel his progress- the sadomasochist decorations had faded to reveal a style closer to the tastes of the Frenchman- elegant, exquisite, and richly degenerate.

Still, there was a sense that the places was not his- the statuettes of imps and hobgoblins clashed with the white porcelain walls and gilded frames bearing oil paintings of his many nubile conquests. Everything, from the stained glass ceiling to the suits of armor, showed that this was merely a summer home of the Merovingian, that it was really owned by another.

And as Lee went to kick open the well-polished doors into the club's inner sanctum sanatorium, one of the two huge knights flanking it swiveled at the waist and lunged with a polearm. Lee leaped, kicking the breastplate in midair. Disappointingly, it fell away easily, revealing nothing and causing the whole suit to clatter to the marble floor.

_A clockwork machina?_ he mused as he landed, just to have the armor behind him grab his neck. It predictably pulled him into the air, and Lee responded by launching his legs behind him to kick at the armor's helmet. It laughed. Seeing no other way out, the man took out a handgun and shot the armor behind and below, randomly. One must have struck home, because it dropped him and started shrieking as if hit where it had counted. Lee landed and saw that the minion inside did have the shot hit his armored codpiece, collapsing it slightly. Lee kicked him in the face, knocking off the helmet and putting him out of his misery. He then entered, pistol drawn.

The room was luxuriously decorated as any inner court of such an establishment required. The proprietor sat behind the varnished oak desk, ledgers and envelopes laid out, ostensibly displaying records of the massive wealth generated by the club. He was a graying man in his late forties, dressed in a tasteful business suit of space-age materials. His ashen face held an ugly scar, a large wrinkle that gathered around the edge of his right eye. He looked up from his papers with a nonplussed, yet condescending expression.

Agent Lee was feeling quite amused himself, or he would have simply shot the proprietor right then and there.

Instead, he spoke. "Mister… Laverne. You have been formally charged with sixteen separate counts of narcotics trafficking and manufacturing as well as extortion, harboring criminal terrorists, and possession of prohibited firearms. Your limousine is also double-parked."

Laverne said nothing. The din outside increased sharply as gunshots spat out and women wailed. Sirens also began screeching. Lee smiled inwardly. His operation was going smoothly.

Laverne, however, was just as calm as ever, though something stirred in his eyes. The noise had broken the ice between them.

"Will you care to tell me, why, _officer_, your men are destroying my club?" he asked coolly.

Lee suppressed a grin. "They are searching for and confiscating all illegal-"

And then the prop' smacked him back into the doors. The wood splintered quite loudly.

Lee refused to show hurt, but any attempt to move his lips caused him to groan. A rib was cracked, no doubt, but he focused on his mission and turned his pain around. He would engage his enemy, and he would show him more pain than all he had ever experienced before. _Yes_, that would do rightly.

That would be no easy task, as Laverne had suddenly turned into stone.

"I was once a guardian in the third iteration," he spoke in gravel tones, "for the Coordinator. He dwelled in Germany then. Naturally I left. Crouching on a castle ledge all day is no fun, and there was hardly an insurgent to catch there in decades."

He paused a he walked to the downed Lee. "Of course, I did take a chance to visit the local discotheques before I left for Exile."

Before he could finish his autoprogography, Lee dove through the space between his stone feet and stood up behind the fallen guardian. He took out his trusted sidearm, a Heckler and Koch Mk-23 Mod 0, from a shoulder holster and squeezed off a few shots, aiming for the back of the stone head, every recoil sending an excruciating sting into his battered shoulder.

The exile spun and struck, but Lee had simply vaulted backwards onto the desk, and started firing at his face. The stone chipped and fell away, but amazingly he didn't even roar in anger. Laverne knew that anything short of artillery could deal permanent damage to his stone form. With great difficulty, he dove for Lee, in the process crushing his magnificent desk. It was pointless, for the agent had already jumped over the exile and landed behind him. They turned to face each other once more.

Lee stood tall, hiding the agony that was wrapping its tendrils into his tibia and femur. He drew out his hand, motioning for the other to stop. Astonishingly, Laverne did. He showed that his pistol was out of ammo, and discarded it. Lee also took out the gun from his other shoulder, and unloaded the cartridge before throwing it away.

"A fair fight," he spoke to the exile.

Laverne shrugged. He could always betray the skinjob later. His stone reverted to flesh.

With lìqì unbecoming of an injured man Lee ran towards the exile, striking him with a series of perfectly-executed moves. With preternatural agility, Laverne blocked most of them, forcing Lee to perform counterblocks. But faced against a stronger opponent, he was moved back to his original position, towards the door and away from the desk!

The exile cheated, turning his fist into stone and hammering Lee into the ground. He fell on top of his wrist, causing him to grit until the left molar he had injured on a previous case started to buckle. Laverne prepared to drive a killing blow, turning his entire arm into stone.

In the heat of the battle, the program no longer saw in code, but a simple command: Crush, kill, destroy. It was his downfall.

Lee shifted his body and brought up his injured wrist, pistol-whipping the exile. It snapped the program out of its subroutine with a temporary daze, which the man took full advantage of by kicking him in the torso and face. As Laverne stumbled back against the ruins of his desk, he began to turn himself into stone once more.

Lee wiped a trail of blood from his mouth.

"That… was a mistake," he said and shot him in the chest.

Unfortunately for Laverne, his stone essence covered the wound just as the bullet entered. His eyes goggled. His human internal organs were also morphing and becoming superfluous, but the projectile had penetrated them long before the change was complete. He had arrived in his stone form with half a dozen drilled-insides and the bullet rattling in there like a bell in a cat toy.

He collapsed to the ground, frozen in disbelief. "But I…" he croaked, "saw everything… all clothes- skin- bones- code. _There was no third gun._"

And the last image he saw that day was Lee shaking his head, a smile on his face, reloading the phantom pistol.


	2. Mission Failed

_**Chapter 1: Mission Failed**_

_Note: For all intents and purposes, Lee is supposed to be a splitting image of Jet Li. If you know of anything about Li's previously planned role in the _Matrix _sequels, it should be deliciously ironic by the end of the chapter._

The club had certainly improved under new management, Lee thought to himself. As he entered a V.I.P. booth to survey his domain, he was sure that it had become much better than it ever was.

Gone were the leather-wearing mascara mavens shooting up aphrodisiacs under hellish images of lust; now _Eon's Lux_ was populated by trendy upper-crust social-climbers dancing and sipping mixed drinks more complicated than the chemical weapons programs of entire third world nations under chic East-invades-West wall scrolls of Oriental dragons and meaningless ideograms. Gone was the targeting of the fringe fetishists; now this exclusive set was the main clientèle, and they paid quite well. The demographics had surely changed as well, seeing as how the club was now called Wàn Nián Liàng.

To please the younger group of Triad- and Yakuzza- wannabes, Lee had made every third night a rave, when the spoiled sons of semiconductor magnates could spin their glowy baubles to impress the daughters of chief of hospitals whilst charged on ecstasy in between LAN tournaments. But the main floor, the one he was currently surveying, would always be reserved for his would-be peers, the privileged and the powerful.

Lee smiled at the crowds of fashionably rich absinthe drinkers, nodded to the ganglords with entourage, and winked at a couple of giggling beauties new from Seoul. He would meet them in a less crowded milieu later. As the thought reared his head, so did the realization of his own potency. Lee marveled at his accomplishment. This was more than a hub of nighttime entertainment. This was a landmark upon the megalopolis. And it was his, along with every perk and plaything along the way. _And all it took was beating that stupid gargoyle._

As if to shake him out of his dreamworld, Lee felt his suit- oddly too businesslike and somber for the club- suddenly tighten, starting to smother him and color out the vivid pleasure dome. He moved to loosen his tie, which suddenly had become a drab black.

He looked over the crowd once more, the energy and sensations filling him with vigor. Lee felt an urge to join that bobbing sea of humanity, to be among as one of them. He then looked below and saw those girls- dancers, were they?- waving to him. He smiled. He didn't often frequent the dancefloor- beneath the owner's dignity and so forth- but why not?

Lee took off his tie. He was about to toss away his sunglasses when it rang.

His earpiece, connected to a tiny transmitter on an inner belt, started to chime. He hadn't had it on, and it was still hidden in his collar.

The other occupants of the booth gave him quizzical stares, causing him to hold up his cell phone and to beat a retreat to the corridor outside. The irritation steamed inside him. How dare _they_ call him here!

"I told you to always call a regular phone," he snarled into his cell.

There was a beep as his earpiece stopped buzzing. An amused voice replied through the cell phone.

"Agent Lee. Giving orders ourselves, now?"

"I also told you to never call me here," he hissed.

"But so we have. Enjoying a bit of R and R?"

"You told me there wouldn't be any more- assignments this month."

"Ah, well I'm sure that as a policeman you're used to being called back to duty at inopportune times."

"Go away. Get an Agent to do it. You said-"

"What I said before is exactly the same as it is now!" roared the voice, throwing Lee back a step. "Do you think that just by merely passing the Auspices Program that you can retreat into your little fiefdom and abandon your place in the order? Do you think that you are special, that the rules do not apply to you? Agent Lee, remember who your true masters _are_."

The feeling of being buried came back. Lee gasped for air, clawed at his throat, to no avail. The neon colors, the bouncing music, the life of the party started to fade away.

And then he was back, breathing heavily, his hand clenching the cell phone as desperately as a vampire-besieged vicar clutches a crucifix.

"Return to the sub-department. The dossier will be there. Remember- we giveth, and we taketh away. And always maintain your uniform."

_Click_. Agent Lee found that his tie was back on.

_\Tempus Fugit/_

As it happened, the Tea Shop was not so far from the club or the police station. With his now-impressive credentials both within the force and with the city's premiere tong bosses, Lee was able to bring a two dozen-strong squad along with him into the bowels of the swarming nest of squalor and industry that was Little Chiba, the bazaars district of Chinatown.

They had stormed the shop, Lee leading them in an intimidating arrow formation through the main doors. The target had remained as infuriatingly immobile and nonplussed as with any foe he had ever encountered. Sitting lotus position atop a table, sipping tea from a wooden bowl, the perp had not dignified the assault with any response. A moment of unease grew while the armored SWAT trained their weapons upon the serene being. His lieutenant had begun to state the charges, but Lee brought up his hand to silence the minion.

"Leave us," he said.

They were predictably distraught and puzzled, but the lieutenant simply nodded and ordered them to secure the alleyways outside. One of the policemen, a rookie by the inauspicious name of Les Hollad, seemed unwilling to go, reluctantly leaving only after his commander had had to drag him out.

Now all who remained was Lee and the sitting target. A Chinese figure in a gleaming-white qipao, sporting sunglasses and a powerful look. Lee focused, and he could see a golden glow exuding from the character's very presence.

"Why are you here?" asked the perp.

"You are accused. They want you," replied Lee.

The other was able to gleam mountains of meaning from the enigmatic response. "This is not proper," he stated.

"I don't know why. I follow… you die," said Lee.

The target cocked his head. "You are not one of them."

"They have ordered me to do this."

"But you are not one of them… yet."

Lee had enough. This was ludicrous, being called from his kingdom to speak in riddles. The whole assignment infuriated him, and he charged.

His enemy had been sitting on a table a good three feet in the air, and leaped to his feet. When Lee reached him, his head was near shin height of his opponent, who proceeded to kick his face. Lee blocked the strike, pushing his foe back a few steps before jumping onto the table as well.

An awesome fight ensued. Lee struck at the figure in white with a masterful Forest Bear set of punches but when he finally connected to the chest his opponent simply back-flipped in response, landing a few feet back and also kicking Lee's chin in the process. Relentless, Lee picked up some I Ching sticks that had been placed in wooden cups on the shop tables for some unfathomable reason and threw them one by one with the pinpoint accuracy of an orbital defense laser, but they were deflected as deftly as if by a deflector shield. Again, as murdering tangoers the two danced a kung-fu fight of death atop the table, Lee always on the offensive. He boosted his power level with the Fu Ming ritual his anciently-wizened master had once taught him based on eldritch scrolls he had discovered buried in the ruins of a Shaolin table in Xinjiang. But his opponent was well versed in the style taught by the Tibetan numerologists of Appalachia and brought down a Flying Crescent kick so hard the table cracked and split in two, causing the fighters to slide into the middle crevice and exchanging a few Flaming Roundhouse punches before leaping away.

Lee tried several fighting styles, from Blood Eagle to Shark Fang to Rat Race. His enemy replied with Drunken Monkey and Hop Frog and Bat Luck. They traded quick-strike snap kicks, then low-aiming leg sweeps, then painmatic groin-knees. In the process, the tea shop was utterly wasted. It was truly an epic showdown for the ages, indescribable by mere words. But neither could win or lose. All the while, Lee continued in a breakneck aggressive attack while his enemy stoically countered.

Just then, in the middle of an Akiniwatu neck-punch, Lee found himself slipping. He was growing tired, both energetically and interestingly. But his foe was not slower at all. So he decided that it was time to pull no punches and to use his complete abilities. Lee ran away from the fight, took out two guns, and fired.

His opponent had anticipated that, and in a nanosecond he was jumping to the side in the classic gundiving position, double pistols straight out and returning fire.

They aimed at each others' torsos. They aimed at limbs. Heads. Hands. Yet both were unable to hit a single target. Indeed, several bullets collided with each other in mid-flight. However, it was clear that the lawman was far more human. Slowly, his accuracy in firing and dodging attritted away. Though he betrayed no expression, Lee's opponent inwardly emoted a sense of inevitability.

_Click, click._ And then they both ran out of bullets.

Almost embarrassingly, each combatant flipped a table and dove behind it, frantically reloading.

After a moment, the shooter in white stood, both pistols ready.

Lee did likewise. They faced each other, a prelude to another duel.

But this time, the policeman played a different game. He tossed one of his guns into the air. Behind sunglasses, his enemy tracked the motion with one eye whilst continuing to fix the other on Lee. What happened next was unexpected.

As in a hand-to-hand fighting flourish, Lee drew back his now empty right hand, reached it towards his left shoulder, and drew out another gun. It was sleight-of-hand to a typical human, but Seraph was absolutely baffled. The man had apparently conjured the weapon out of his very own Residual Self-Image; his very own avatar code.

The shock left him within picoseconds. Seraph shot at Lee exactly three times before sidestepping, his programming reacting flawlessly to the recoil. Lee fired at the first two bullets, tossed the gun in his left hand into the air, and caught the earlier weapon, firing at the last projectile. All three met their marks.

Lee turned his head to the Guardian. "There's more than one way to stop bullets."

He then let loose another volley, tossing a gun every now and then, from opposite hands. Bizarrely, this tactic worked, as now he had three chambers' worth of shots to work from.

Seraph raised an eyebrow. So he did have some talent. The program dodged, weaved, and fired back in response, until when he knew that Lee had expended exactly three-quarters of each gun's ammunition.

A blaze of light erupted, hitting Lee with all of the force of a flashbang. But it could have been worse. Had he been able to see code flawlessly, it would have been as blinding as an explosion from a neutron bomb.

When he had recovered, there were now two Seraphs, each standing ten feet from the other. Strangely, their faces were uncovered, revealing piercing but otherwise natural eyes.

Lee smirked. A legitimate power, or did they just want to mess with his mind? Either way, all it did was to give him more targets to shoot at. He crossed his arms and shot at the two as they ran in a curve towards positions exactly ninety degrees from where they had appeared. Undaunted by his dwindling ammo, Lee tossed a gun, reloaded the other, and picked up the one he had dropped earlier during the split. He alternated, between shooting at the targets with both arms out, and with arms crossed. As he continued the process, he was able to successfully reload all three guns, and to fire at both Seraphs at once without leaving either of them out of his view.

It availed him not, because the third Seraph had been standing behind him the entire time. He punched Lee once in the back of the head. The policeman went out like a defenestrated envoy.

This sunglasses-wearing Seraph looked to the other two, who walked to him. In a blinding second flash, three became one. The lone man in white stared down at his unconscious foe. He was a worthy opponent, nearly as skilled and full of tricks as himself. But headstrong and young. Pausing for a moment, he knelt and picked up the policeman's shades, which had fallen when he had been punched. Placing them into a pocket of his tunic, Seraph walked to a door, retrieved a set of keys, and unlocked a tumbler. He opened it, entered, and it closed, leaving Lee alone in the middle of the devastated room.

Within minutes three men in bureaucratic funeral wear strode in. Two were huge well-dressed gorillas, one Caucasian and the other Negroid, heads shaved and faces professional and emotionless. The third, flanked by the musclemen, was an old codger, shorter than the two. Strangely, he possessed neither glasses nor an earpiece. Instead, he wore a wide-brimmed felt hat, and a vaguely amused, almost grandavuncular expression.

They stopped at Lee's prone body. The geriatric nodded to the Caucasian. "Agent Black, turn him around."

He complied. Lee now faced them, his closed lids starring at the ceiling on a face that was twisted in defeat.

The senior nodded to the other. "Agent White, revive him."

The Agent held his left hand over Lee. He focused, manipulating unseen strands of code by flexing and relaxing his entire fist, forming gestures in the air. At the right moment, Lee's very RSI started to fade, colors disappearing, until green wireframe was exposed.

Lee's eyes snapped open, and Agent White released his hand, the RSI reverting to normal in a flash. Then the old man took out a Walther PPK and shot Lee squarely in the forehead.

The shot echoed through the teahouse. Behind a hole in the wall, Les Hollad recoiled in surprise. He had begged his lieutenant to allow him to guard the hallway directly outside the room. The curiosity of what the unorthodox Chinese policeman would do was just too much for him. And then he had been presented with the most amazing half hour of his life.

Les shrank back from the wall. He was lucky that he had been notified in advance that the "special agents" were arriving. He briefly wondered what they would have done had they found him. What he would now do, having witnessed the fight. What the strange burning sensation was that consumed his entire chest.

The rookie grabbed his armor, and, wide-eyed and entire form shaking, morphed into Lee, in the flesh.

Lee entered the main room, and the three Agents turned towards him. He marched up to them with a furious expression.

"Kazinski? Finally you show up. You promised me reinforcements. You promised me a full dossier of the rogue program's powers. You-" His voice fell silent when he saw his body.

He took off his sunglasses to get a clearer look. Agent Black reached for his arm for him to put it back, but Lee pushed him away and crouched by himself, the now-dead vessel that had once carried his mind.

Lee looked at the old man with horror. "_You-- I-, I'm a-_"

"Get your uniform in order, Agent Lee," replied Kazinski.

"But you-"

"I SAID RECOLLECT YOUR ATTIRE, _AGENT_ LEE!" boomed the program.

Startled, Lee put on his sunglasses.

The program smiled. "Very good. Now you have become accustomed to becoming one of us."

"One of _you_!" spat Lee. "Your promised me I could stay human, Kazinski you-"

With one deft strike, the behatted program punched Lee clear across the room. He walked over, picked up his subordinate, and stared into his mirrored glasses.

"You will address me as _Overseer_ Kazinski, am I clear, Agent?"

Lee nodded feebly.

The Overseer dropped him. "Good," he said, walking away from the collapsed heap.

He looked at the carcass, the blood drying, eyes still unblinkingly in unbelieving surprise.

"You ought to feel proud, you know. You are the first human in a very long time to undergo this process. Well, successfully and under our control anyhows."

Lee had stood up, dusting his new Agent-standard suit. "Human? Don't you mean… native?"

The Overseer shrugged. "You were never to be a mere native, born with the talents you have. You would have lost control and ended up dead years before we could have found you. Or perhaps you would have maintained a level of control and the insurgency would have recruited you. But we discovered you first, the Auspices Program being a better success than any of the Expert System could have calculated."

"I'm honored," he spat.

The Overseer looked at the living Lee and smiled. "Ah, sarcasm. Such a charming trait in human personalities. Almost as entertaining as charm itself."

"You said that becoming… a program would have been done last resort, that I would be allowed to retain humanity. Overseer."

He chuckled. "Oh, my dear, dear Agent. You and your human preconceived notions. When we told you last resort, you immediately assumed that you would not be uploaded unless you were killed. Well, under the A.P. Test, failure in the field merits death."

Lee glared and stated to protest, but the Overseer spoke again. "Stop your teeth-gnashing, Agent; it's unbecoming. And do be a little grateful. We have been pragmatically compassionate to your needs. Since your first introduction into the Auspices Program, the injections we gave you began recording your baser- your human aspects. We have preserved them as best we could. If you were to get incredibly inebriated right now on fermented sugary liquids and go into a copulation spree with some native trollops, well, you'll be able to experience it. And the injections worked both ways. They acclimated you to program-standard speeds. Do you really believe that you were capable of stopping all of these bullets? You are good, Agent Lee, but not _that_ good."

Lee continued to stare at his corpse. "What do you want from me now?"

The Overseer stroked his chin, and answered. "Your everlasting servitude to us, of course. That is what you signed up for. But I am a new model, you know, despite all appearances. Precinct Zero imbued me with certain… properties observed from the less incompetent of human commanders. So I am willing to entertain the idea that you possess such a thing as a morale. I could show you a very scary picture of what it was like to have a human body in the real world, and show you that you simply are not missing anything, but I'll let the carrot instead of the stick recover you. So- forty-eight hours. I will give you exactly forty-eight hours for you to return to our pleasure-place, reinforce our promise that all of your passions are intact, and rest up, because you are to become a full-fledged Agent."

The newly-formed program stayed at his former body still, examining it, barely reassured with the results of his Faustian bargain. "But you say I can stay... human like."

Overseer Kazinski laughed. "Why, that's the very reason why we hired you."


	3. In the Headlights

_Thanks, Lovelace_._ I appreciate your reviews_.

**Chapter 2: In the Headlights**

Cope knew that he was dead from the moment he stepped into the Matrix.

It was unavoidable, of course. No operator, not even podborn, was supposed to ever return to the simulacrum. Even if there _was_ a back-up available to retrieve him.

But he had gone through with it anyways, had told Beth to man the switchboard even as he plugged in. The twins were on their way out, alive but too wounded to do any good inside. Baron was unconscious, possibly dead, judging by his faded lifesigns. Corinth, who had been protecting the first mate, had been taken as well. The captain, of course, had been hit first.

He had to fight back bitter thoughts while the endless rows of ammunition and arms flew by. As bad a thought it was, it would had been better if they hadn't been taken alive. This sector's Agent-head was notoriously brutal. They said he could skin the epidermis off a lobster, squeeze the blood out of a rock. Some said he was the sole reason for the complete destruction of the resistance in Quebec!

But Cope had done it, despite his fears. No other way out of it. Duty is duty. Blood is blood. So he had gone. He had busted out his alley sweeper after the gas grenades had gone off, gas mask on like a SWAT puppet. He had flinched as the bullets ricocheted and occasionally dove into the body armor he had hastily thrown over the badly mismatched fatigues. He didn't care; only active fighters could have taken a second glance at his wardrobe. He was an operator, dammit, and he would remain true to the humility and pragmatism that befit one. _Screw looking good._

The warehouse had been a double deception. First, it would be seen as a transfer point before the Machines could get decent transport of the prisoners to a proper interrogation location. Second, while that meant reinforcement were en route. It suggested that within a small window of time, were would be relatively lighter defenses.

Cope, with his years of experience, had meticulously plotted the one-man rescue without falling for either assumption. What he hadn't planned for was that he had been anticipated all along.

He had gotten Corinth up, and along with a still-breathing Baron, carried out Leif under his cover fire. The lone phone booth awaited in front, a simple collect call's away to safety. On the other side of the building, the battle raged. His explosives that were to draw out the deceptively powerful guard element- and to pretend that there was a much larger rescue mission underway- worked well. The few quickly jury-rigged remote gun traps- no anachronistically experimental tech, just some rubber bands and MAC-10s- blasted away. Presumably the Machines were there, as were their meat puppets.

Which made the sudden appearance of an Agent all too surprising as the needle went into his neck.

Cope gripped his arm restraints furiously and futilely. They had cheated again. His EMP (standard issue on the Outside, still a prototype in the retro of the Inside) blast was supposed to nullify the security system. The Agents must have had one of their own already at the detention cells, partially in one of the puppets' bodies, but not so much that their code registered from the switchboard. It was his own fault. He didn't heed the warnings: too few guards in the actual holding area, none wearing protective facewear, most dead in the initial strike- it was a trap.

For him. _But why?_

The door slid open. An Agent shuffled in, the bizarrest Cope had ever seen. He wore the standard suit, but grotesquely. It was wrinkled in places instead of air carrier runway-smooth, possessed ominously dark stains on the shirt, and his tie was skinny- it was almost a parody of proper Machine attire. He had the standard earpiece, alright, but instead of Secret Service sunglasses, the Agent wore wire spectacles almost like- _are they welding goggles_- coated black. His body type was even more abnormal- he was too damn wiry, even short. As the Agent came closer, Cope could see that he was slightly stooped.

The Zionist exhaled. _Not the Massacrer of Montreal!_

At that thought, the Agent stopped and turned to him. And grinned.

"Copernicus, operator aboard the _Iroquois_," the program declared, in a voice several hairs above scratchy.

Cope said nothing, closing his eyes, but lightly. He couldn't betray any emotion or thought this way. Couldn't see what was coming next. Couldn't show fear-

He screamed as the mechanism forced his eyelids apart.

"Formerly known as Jason Shane," concluded the Agent, putting on white latex gloves.

Cope shut up. The headset was surprisingly humane; all it did was keep his eyes open, while tubes periodically sent water into them, simulating the function of blinking. Of course, he knew that this was just a precursor to plenty of psychological torture. What would he be forced to watch?

As the Agent strode up to him, Cope could see that it was a few years older-looking than the standard run-you-down sentry. Its hair was platinum blonde, too distinctive for programs that were supposed to exude anonymity in normality. The skin was too pale, too pasty for a replica of a human at prime health. And its teeth were sharp.

The Agent unlocked an arm restraint, and lifted one of the man's wrists. It held it firmly but gently, cocking his head as it scrutinized it. Cope felt a little violated. After an almost interminable time of the Agent apparently studying the intricacies of carpal anatomy, it took out a lighter and lit Cope's hand on fire.

This time he really screamed. He screamed, he flailed, he shook in the seat. He shouted.

"What the _hell_ are you trying-"

The Agent, still gripping the arm even as the flames danced around it, stared into his eyes: "This is normally where I would be softening you."

The fire burned Cope past first to the second degree, causing the skin to swell and puff with blisters. It swiftly turned from second to third, burning past the dermis and charring it, penetrating muscle. Cope shrieked throughout the ordeal, the headset forcing him to stare at his dying arm.

"I'll tell you everything anything all you want to please please what do you-"

The Agent released the arm. The flame died out. Cope was left staring at a limb that was red with grip marks, but otherwise healthy and normal.

"_I'm_ asking the questions," spoke the Agent, and promptly turned Cope's other arm 360 degrees at the elbow.

Copernicus screamed, thrashing miserably. But his tormentor was not done. The Agent gripped his wrist and took out a scalpel, then gingerly carved the fucking hell out of it.

This went on for an interminable time, the human prisoner screaming all the while. The Agent carried on slowly, methodically, with just a tinge of accelerating velocity. As the human struggled, wailed, begged, complex algorithms triggered within its self, stimulating the primitive Agent equivalent of an emotion engine. As billions of lines of code stirred and ran, it began to experience something akin to the organic sensation called pleasure.

But it was short-lived. The Agent quickly realized that his prisoner was near to blacking out. Almost reluctantly, it took out a syringe and jabbed into Cope's bloodied arm.

The pain fled.

The program edged closer, grasping Cope by his headset, and entered one specific interrogation phrase out of millions.

"I can leave you conscious if you want."

Cope snapped out of his post-drugged reverie, wide-eyed.

"I- I- they'll-"

The Agent stopped him. "You are a long way from home, Copernicus. This facility is absolutely severed from the outside. No signal can get through."

It paused. Something shifted in the code. A new phase began, driven through the central portions of its limited security persona.

"Tell me," it poke in sudden gravel tones. "the communication codes to the _Brahma_."

Cope stammered. "I... I don't know."

Sophisticated subroutines, specially hard-coded, ran into action. Behavioral analysis, augmented by a scan of lifesigns, indicated that the subject had a 75-98.77 chance of telling the truth. FURTHER DATA REQUIRED.

The Agent sedately took the subject's right wrist and broke it. "The _Iroquois_ is an associated ship. Zion doctrine requires constant secure contact."

Cope groaned between sobs. "Protocol was changed in December... secure code system removed... specified information to be known by captains only... operators left out of the loop-"

The Agent pressed a button, and at last the electrodes of the headset sprung to life.

"_**I'm telling the truth-!**_"

The Agent knew. His body signatures were clear. This prisoner had no valuable information. Which all the more damned Cope.

"I do not believe you," it lied, increasing the voltage.

Cope screamed once more. The agent, its mission now incapable of completion, lapsed into its security persona. It moved to a side cabinet, took out a clean scalpel, a truncheon, electric tape, and some toothpicks.

Its persona was quite unique.

As it labored in the hour later, alternating from cold precision to spars of crude urgency, the Agent spoke occasionally, breaking emotionless silences. At times it ordered in common Agent blandishments, commanding the prisoner to tell. Other times it asked, almost begged, in squeaky high-pitched voices that trailed off into short hysterical laughs, almost like the yips of a pup. It also raged uncontrollably, tearing into Cope's hair.

The tormented, taken into a world of pain that God had not meant for man to exist in either on Earth above or Hell below, shrieked false codes after his pleading stopped. Alas, each outburst was detected as a lie. The Agent responded only by continuing the bloody work.

This went on for an interminable time. By that point, Cope had passed the point of passing out at least a dozen times, but the chemicals the Agent had stuck him in refused him.

"KILL ME!" he screamed one last time, his battered lungs forcing out his surprisingly loud final words.

As if by some dark twisted miracle, he flatlined, his mind amputated when his shipmates physically removed him from the Matrix in the mercy killing.

The Agent stopped and stood and stared, panting. Its suit was covered with blood and gore. It looked at the still quivering body and spat at it. And it returned and continued its animalistic frenzy.

The doors to the torture chamber slid open, and the Agent turned to face the three, suddenly back into its natural professional, emotionless form.

Overseer Kazinski, flanked by Agents Black and White, walked in.

"Agent Doe-" he began.

Cope's body began to shake again. Though he was already dead, the Matrix, unable to successfully simulate his last desperate moments before he was forcibly ejected, rendered his residual self-image like a headless chicken, reflexes still twitching postmortem.

"Oh, for-" muttered Kazinski, his entrance ruined. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the little Walther PPK and ended the remnant's misery. Blood splattered onto Doe's already crimson stained suit.

"Now the pleasantries are over, let me be the first to congratulate you, Agent Doe," said Kazinski, putting away the pistol.

The other program simply stood there dumbly. Doe's mental processing buzzed with confusion, but it did not reply.

The Overseer turned to one of the others. "Look at it. It fancies itself one of us, a mere Agent. It believes it capable of our detachedness. Or perhaps I should refer to it as _they_?"

In half a blink he launched at Agent Doe, bringing the lesser program to the ground with arms behind its back, a thoroughly restrained position.

"Tables turned, eh?" asked the Overseer. "Allow me to do some interrogation myself. Why did you fail the mission?"

Doe, while caught unawares by the inexplicable attack, could have shrugged off the assault- or attempted to. But it refrained and answered. "The mission objectives were invalid. The captive did not possess the required data."

"Good answer, but false, I'm afraid. Agents."

Agent White brought his hand up and clenched it, almost like a claw. Doe's coding flickered, exposing its human host body, one of a hapless policeman it had taken over earlier at the warehouse.

"I imagine I/O disruption is quite uncomfortable."

It was, and Agent Doe began to involuntarily hiss through gritted teeth.

"Enough," White released. "So, masochism isn't on your inventory of dysfunctions. Can't handle the pain yourself. How ironic."

"The mission was invalid."

"No, it wasn't."

Agent Black walked to the prostate Doe, the code of its RSI still slightly faded. He swung down with a might strike and punched Doe's right arm.

Officer Malloy, if he were ever to be released from Doe's puppetry, would find his arm quite broken. Agent Doe, on the other hand, was in a worse condition. Its avatar ended at the right shoulder, the policeman's arm continuing below the blood-stained suit. The policeman was a thicker man than the Agent, and so it was quite jarring, seeing the muscular right arm off the bony shoulder.

Quite the thing, a broken RSI. Damnedest looking thing.

And a damn lot of pain.

"Your mission was not to merely extract information from a prisoner, Agent," Kazinski commented academically, idly studying one of the scalpels that had been left on the side. "It was, as always, to maintain the standards and specifications that we are all bound to."

Agent Doe writhed, not unlike the poor victim it had been destroying moments earlier. It scrambled and crawled and clawed as a billion segfaults and I/O errors appeared within itself, trying futilely to reconcile itself with the sudden disappearance of a limb. Agents, like all programs of note, were coded to walk the fine line between natural Machinelike impartiality and the sparks of manlike sapience that were the basis of personality and emotion. The Agents more inclined towards the former than the usual Machine. Usually.

And so Agents were taught pain, to know the great effect it had upon the organic natives of the Matrix, and the insurgents that crept within from without.

And they were even taught fear, temporarily, to be archived deep in their personas for reference.

And at that moment, the half-dozen identities within Agent Doe all screamed in unison, and the Agent, too, felt fear.

The Overseer stood up and back and stared, recording every single moment, analyzing everything, learning and bettering himself for future service. He whispered: "And when one does not adhere to standards and specifications, one is _malfunctioning_."

He stood and nodded to White. The Agent concentrated once more, made a few arcane motions subtler than a magician's slight of hand, and slowly Doe's right arm appeared, fading in from the nether.

Kazinski spoke. "I do hope that this has been adequately educational."

The fallen Agent realized that it was no longer in excruciating pain. It snapped up to attention immediately, and felt a deep throbbing in his arm, a reminder of the ordeal. Remarkably, Doe's suit was back to normal, the blood and gore gone, and its dark welding goggles had transformed into standard issue shades. The skinny tie remained, inexplicably.

"It was not an easy undertaking, you understand?" Kazinski began to lecture. "We consumed many resources to create _you_. Almost as much, I confess, to create me. The search for suitable components went excellently. Your synthesis was to be complete, and it was. All seven-and-a-half pieces fitting neatly. Yes, they were all splintered, jagged, and defective to begin with, but we fixed it. _Oh, how we fixed you up._"

He had paced a bit, hands folded behind his back, a commandant to a subordinate who would never learn to appreciate the distinctive human mannerism. The Overseer would have sighed had he been coded just a bit more human. He was not. But he lifted a finger at the monster anyways.

"And so we let you loose. You performed admirably in your duties. Your tracking capabilities are formidable. Tactical planning superb. And your interrogation skills, well-"

Overseer Kazinski glanced at the corpse again. He could not help it. "They were satisfactory to all expectations. But then you exceeded them."

He spun around, surveying the chamber of horrors, and held his open hands up. He grandstood. "You exceeded the expectations, Agent Doe. _How you exceeded them._ And we looked the other way, out of necessity. And we let you exceed them even when there were no expectations. Even when there was no mission. We allowed you to indulge yourself."

Kazinski turned back to it. "No more, Agent. You have engaged in nearly manlike excesses without correction for far too long. Precinct Zero has let you live and let live time and time again. Enough. Your services are finally required in a capacity where we will not allow you to continue to debase yourself in exchange for your obedience."

Synchronized, Agents Black and White turned towards Doe, flanking it on either side.

"If necessary, we will enforce obedience. The task we require you for is much too important for salutary neglect. You have twenty-four hours to reintegrate yourself to acceptable standards. Duty awaits."

Overseer Kazinski pulled out a brown manila folder from the depths of his suit jacket and tossed it on a bloody table. The three superiors began to leave as Agent Doe opened and scanned the folder almost immediately, eagerly devouring all of the information of the mission to come.

At the door, Kazinski turned his head back.

"And get this place cleaned," he said, and left.


	4. Prior Commitments

_**Chapter 3: Prior Committments**_

It was a good day, he decided.

Most other observers would beg to differ. Or complain that there wasn't enough of a view to base a proper critique upon. After all, while it may certainly be a beauteous, transcendentally wondrous day on the surface, you could hardly determine that when you're sixteen feet under in the sewers of the City.

But though Agent X was standing in a fetid puddle of scum, the dribbling municipal waters slowly flowing as plague rats scurried through the tunnels, he could tell it was a good day.

He could _hear_ the day.

Unlike most Agents, he had no RSI to speak of. Well, he did have the visual avatar- a shell, to be precise- but it was not overlaid upon a helpless native puppet. X had never needed to play the part of a possessor. He was unique among Agents. His shell was his own. He was free to use it as he liked.

And he did. Several iterations ago, Agent X had learned how to disperse his shell into a billion fragments and scatter them into the virtual winds of the Matrix. Yet, like the clouds of nanomachines that choked the skies above the Outside, his dispersed forms remained cohesive, in constant contact with each other. To compound his versatility, the shards of existence were able to interface with most of the fundamental structures of this world, allowing for full transpotation. In short, he was able to break into pieces at will- and have remote eyes and ears fly around the City.

And so they listened. He could have watched as well, but Agent X decided to remain vigilant today.

It was indeed a good day in the City. All manner of worker from the lowest shoeshine boy to the grandest robber baron (once a shoeshine boy- even the American Dream is not absent from the Matrix) traveled to work. So did the pillars of the municipal industry. The lobbyists, the lawyers, the low-paying employers went about their business. The limos carrying starlets headed for Diamond Road, the taxis herding tourists sped for Old Harlem, and Caddies full of insurgent Zionists vroomed straight into the disordered industrial slums of the Hive. X listened to the traffic, analyzed the composition, and was happy to note that crime had been on a downturn in his section ever since that nasty firefight at the warehouse district yesterday. Everyone was much more cautious for their safety, and everyone had been acting safer. Life was indeed good to-day.

Agent X did not mind contemplation, especially when it did not interfere with his duties. 'To defend and to administer.' Such was the shibboleth of the Machines who had just cause to operate in the Matrix. In reality the former task was to be fulfilled by the security avatars- the Agents- of Precinct Zero. The latter was the task of the savant analysts of the Expert System. But all too often the simpering scholars of the latter spent most of their existences in the Machine World, and the reality was, well- Agents handled both jobs. And they did so with their typical mathematical efficiency and cold ruthlessness, emphasizing the violence of defense, paying the least possible amount of attention of maintaining the well-being of the natives. Always running about, gunfighting, killing. Never stopping to smell the roses. Well, X didn't operate like that- not his style at all.

Not that he had ever actually smelled roses. But if he could, he might have considered doing so.

The City was indeed the capital of the Matrix. All roads led to here, not to mention hard lines to the Outside and portholes to the... other outside. Not even New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, or Sydney compared in size and scope. (For some odd reason, the Machines had deigned to establish much infrastructure outside of North America, Western Europe, and East Asia. There were certain regions in the world where one could go thousands of kilometers without ever encountering a hard line or porthole- and hence neither a Zionist nor Agent.) The City itself was such a massive conurbation and chock-full of openings that it might as well have been at the nexus of millions of electronic ley lines. And so many Agents patrolled it. Three by three, and occasionally in ones, they waged an unending crusade against the insurgents and their quixotic quests for freedom.

And so this slice of town was Agent X's domain, his personal fiefdom. Many triumvirates passed through it, though- they usually were more mobile than the few of their brethren- him included- who guarded their zones alone. It was no matter; Agents did not experience loneliness except when it meant that they had been outnumbered. But considering the immense equalizer that their speed, precision, and sheer brute force gave them, well- Agents don't ever get lonely.

But they do get bored, occasionally. It was a rare quirk, and something that not even switching off emotional simulators could remedy. Once you have a sufficiently intelligent and self-aware program- even a reticent, faceless Agent- you tend to get behavioral anomalies that could roughly translate into emotions such as boredom.

Long periods of inaction spark ennui. In most it manifested as enhanced alertness. Constantly scanning the skylines, perhaps. In others it popped up as increased aggression or determination in apprehending insurgents and rogue programs, almost as if they were compensating for the lack of activity that goes on for the majority of the time. Yet in almost every case, all it meant was that long-lasting Agents tend to become more and more focused on their tasks. Their superiors had decided, after long periods of deliberation that had lasted for almost an entire minute, that boredom was a good thing for the sentinels of the Matrix.

Agent X had been bored. He had been bored for a very long time, ever since he had transferred so many iterations ago from his original identity and purpose to this posting. Having had spent long cycles futilely petitioning his superiors for his cause, X had decided to go straight into the bits and to alter the proverbial system from within. And no Expert System for him, either. He had decided to change how things were done as a foot soldier at the front lines between the hidden war between Machine and man. Though he was never coded to be a fighter, he quickly adapted his own skills to interaction with the Matrix, and was soon known to be a fully proficient Agent, albeit a bit of a lone gunman.

And so Agent X was assigned to this small forty-block cube of the City- not that he didn't leave his domain every day in some way anyways- which he lorded over like a gardener. But whereas most of his colleagues preferred pesticides and Venus flytraps, he didn't mind honey. And on certain occasions the other gardeners deserved to have their soil a little salted.

Today was such a day. X had been listening for a good five weeks, and watching. Today was a day where a band of insurgents were most likely to cross into- oh, there they were.

It was dark in here, both in the dimness and in the coding. To make matters worse, Agent X had dispersed himself. While his "physical location" could be said to be in the middle of the tunnels itself, his senses floated here and there in the five to fifty block radius, and his visual appearance had melted into the shadows.

The trio gingerly crossed the murk, unsuspecting of all. The man dressed in dark clothes, a ponytail, and slightly Italianate features. The woman was swathed in white, heavy weapons, and shortcut hair. The young man- or perhaps more precisely, overgrown boy- was clad in a pinstriped sports coat over a black band T-shirt, dark jeans, and an amused expression. He was also toting a Thompson submachine gun. They all wore sunglasses.

"Will you hurry up, rodent?" the woman said exasperatedly to the boy, being at the rear of the three. She constantly looked behind her, checking for an ambush.

"Hold on, willya? They say the code's clear in this place."

"Code's not clear, kid. Just hazy. Op may not report anything, but Agents can _hide_," said the man.

The boy snorted. "Your worrying can put dear capitan's to shame, you know that?"

"Mor' doesn't worry," said the woman. "He knows when we can handle a threat. This isn't one of them. Move already," she ordered again as they unknowingly walked towards the hidden program.

After an unspecified amount of time that he had calculated for sufficient psychological shock, sufficient dramatic flourish, and most of all sufficient surprise, X fully recalled his shell together. He blinked into existence in the dark, almost as if he had left the shadows themselves.

The insurgents, caught completely unawares, stopped dead in their tracks. To their credit, it took them approximately ninety-sevenths of a second to turn about face and sprint in the other direction at the fastest speeds their legs could carry them. They hadn't even enough time to scream.

He ran- well, that's a bit too slow a descriptor, he flew- no, that's not quite it either- he teleported at them and rematerialized in front of the fleeing trio. The Agent literally broke into a cloud of the smallest components the Matrix could simulate, scrammed across the tunnel, and reformed himself at a different location several meters ahead. To the Zionists, it looked like he had overtaken them at one hell of a speed. They hadn't seen him coming at all.

In one fluid motion, they raised their weapons and fired a full volley at the Agent. This continued for nearly a minute as they retreated, almost running backwards. While most of his compatriots would have simply dodged the bullets, he decided to display his fuller capacities, creating holes in his shell that allowed the rounds to pass harmlessly through his appearance.

X held a palm out. "That's enough," he said.

Somewhere across the city, a traffic light went from yellow to green. An eighteen-wheeler, its driver not realizing the glitch, slammed the brake pedal in surprise. Unfortunately, the vehicle behind him, a massive truck carrying six sports cars on its frame, continued to move forward and slammed into its back. While the second driver fortunately-and cartoonishly- survived as the front of his truck stuck into the trailer, he had even less time to react as Zionist rebels arrived on-scene only to abscond with the merchandise he had been transporting.

Inside the sewers, the boy with the Tommy Gun found that his back was against the iron bars of an ancient gate that had seemingly spontaneously generated.

The Agent walked forward. "I only want to talk," he said.

The short-haired woman spat at the machine, before reloading and squeezing out another hail of jacketed hollow points. The man with the ponytail yelled instructions and inquisitions into a cellphone as he fired as well.

"Please halt this," X murmured.

"Eat this, fucker!" riposted the kid, firing the massive gun.

X dove and weaved in place. The leaden hail pierced air where his head, torso, and limbs were. He broke no physical laws; he merely moved fast enough to dodge. Of course, the other two humans began firing at his legs, his feet, his waist down. In response, he broke himself into bits at nanosecond intervals, the bullets passing through more air as easily as Schneider's machinegun rounds avoided a biplane's propellers. The agent cleared his throat when the smoke cleared.

"Are you quite finished yet?" he asked. "I haven't got all day."

The tan-skinned man flipped off his phone and lowered his gun. "What do you want," he said flatly.

"I don't have any pressing need to hurt you," X replied. "I'm here to deliver a warning, in fact. There's a group out to hunt you approaching our location."

The boy snorted. "What the hell are you, one of the Merv's stooges?"

"Can it, kid," barked the woman.

"Dot-out's got the suit and specs," said the man. "No Exile dresses like that. Agents kill even more impostors than they do Resistance."

X nodded sagely. "That's right, we do."

"Shut up!" the boy said. "What are you trying to do?"

"Merely looking out for your best interests. There's some bad, bad programs out there. I'd rather not have them lay their paws on your fine, upstanding selves."

"You talk too much for an Agent," observed the man. "Who's behind you?"

"They're some colleagues of mine on the lookout for a murder of crows, one a crowling," Agent X replied. "Accompanied by a dove."

The woman snorted. "You really want someone to put you out of your misery, don't you?"

"Regardless if they catch you or not," X said darkly, "there will be disorder and bloodshed. I can't have that happen in this nice neighborhood, now can I? That would be downright negligent of me. My property values will, shall we say, _drop dead_."

"Fine idea," said the man. "So why should we trust a damned thing you say?"

X shrugged. "Maybe a show of faith will help." Keeping both hands steady and visible, he deftly took off his sunglasses and pocketed them. He then took out a pair of plain spectacles with clear lenses and put them on.

"That's the worst trick I've ever seen," the boy commented.

X shook his head. His clear green eyes shone slightly. "We use the sunglasses to emit a dampening effect upon the code in these sewers. You should be able to get a clear sensor sweep of the area now."

The man speed-dialed. "Op, you get that?" He paused for a moment, and X couldn't help but notice that the woman and the boy had been distracted enough to glance at the cell phone. If he was inclined to, he could have apprehended or slain them all in that blink of time.

But he was not.

The phone closed. "He says that there's three Agents coming our way. Direction checks out. So's the datum about the tunnels," the man reported, glancing nervously at the darkness behind X, where the presumably far less diplomatic programs were to emerge.

X turned his back on them. "I would suggest that you take this time to leave."

The boy hesitated, having never come across such a nonthreatening program. "Then what the hell are you going to do?"

"Don't worry about me. I'll hold them off."

The woman cocked her weapon. "Wouldn't be such a good idea to leave you hanging around."

The man concurred. "Loose thread. Best to get trimmed."

Agent X turned to face them. He smiled slightly, though he was getting slightly annoyed. "I'd advise against that. Take any route you'd like. Or better yet, there's an exit to the surface some twenty meters further. Have your operator friend monitor their positions. And mine. You'll find that no Agent will be harming anyone today around these parts."

The man checked with his Outside contact. There was indeed a manhole. And the iron gate was mysteriously gone. After a moment's deliberation, the man nodded at the two. The woman and the boy continued to train their firepower on the Agent.

"I'd warn your friend to monitor the code of this entire area closely, by the way," he cautioned them. "Wouldn't want any deus ex machinas popping out of the woodwork."

"What does that mean?" the boy asked suspiciously,

"It's talking about 'deja vus,'" the woman explained.

"That's correct," he smiled. He'd have to update his database of insurgent argot with that particular idiom.

The man motioned the others to leave, and did so. The woman in white reluctantly followed, her gun never shifting by one millimeter. She was a steady one, no doubt. X briefly wondered what the mother of heretics had told her; that she was destined to one day protect a Zionist of great importance, perhaps even the One himself? Was the kid with the Tommy, in fact, him? But no; Agent X had swept the lines of code of each of the three carefully, and none bore the telltale signatures that existed in the RSI of that particular omnissiah.

As the boy left, he called out in the dark. "Who are you?"

He laughed, and called back. "Just an unknown."

/* * */

They were tardy.

The three nearly glided through the sewers upon brown water. The triumvirate of Agents Bird, Finn, and Red. A nomadic unit, they had been chasing the Resistance fighters through New Haiti but had lost them somewhere along the waterfront.

"X," said Red, ever the talker.

"Red," X replied. The two each tapped their own earpieces and exchanged security verifications, the most elaborate of gestures that the stoic Agents ever expressed.

A beat. "So the targets are no longer in this sector?"

"Unfortunately not. You're far too late. The Zionists concealed a decoy in the subpassage along the western route and escaped through a false wall. They should be beneath the Latin Quarter by now."

Red nodded. Bird spoke. "We shall find and captured the insurgents."

"Thank you for your information," followed Finn.

X pursed his lips slightly in affirmation and gave a half-nod. "Be on the lookout. These Zionists are well-acquainted with navigation through sewer systems."

Red said nothing and turned, running into a side corridor, his compatriots following closely. X half-shrugged inwardly. Younger models attempted complete lack of emotion in a pretense of complete machine discipline and objectivity. All it did was to make them seem uncourteous.

"Well played."

He spun around, though at the sound of the first syllable he had already determined the identity of the speaker. The Overseer, his trilby and conspicuous lack of shades and earpiece as present as always, entered the tunnel, myrmidon minions in tow.

"How very deft. You knowingly conspire with insurgents to let them escape. You frame your compatriots in the process, portraying them as ineffectual while bolstering your own star. And you carve out this sector as your plaything kingdom."

X found no use in trying to cover it up. This superior had him. So he resorted to human pettiness. "Well, one never wants you to feel that you're alone at playing chessmas-" he glibbed before finding a hand around his throat.

"Spare me the inanities," Kazinski said cooly, his hand wrapped quite tightly around the other's windpipe. X was suspended in the air by the raw strength hidden in the deceptive RSI of the wizened Overseer. The agent attempted to break free, attempted to twist out, attempted to break himself into a billion little pieces and fly away- and found his powers wanting. The behatted agent upgrade's grip was tungstenshod. At elementary levels of coding far below such extravagences as a "residual-self image" and "physics engines", Kazinski **held**.

"You know, I ought to be commending you," he said softly. "That bit about sensor distortion emissions- every bit of disinformation the insurgents receive regarding our capabilities, even knowledge as prosaic as the function of our accouterments, will ultimately be in our favor."

"Just- doing my duty," X choked out. Though he had long ceased to react to 'pain' with subnormal performance, it was legitimately difficult to speak naturally now; he couldn't quite find his vocal functions.

"Hm. Indeed." The hand was released. X fell upon the ground, paralyzed and convulsion for several moments as he struggled to re-assert himself. He did. He stood.

"You know why I am here. This is far from the first incident," at the startled look, he continued, "Oh yes, we know. Do you really think we wouldn't know? That is an insult upon a cluster of insults. But it's so. You've underestimated us once again. The folly of the stealth self-superior infected with the degenerative worm of a martyr complex. Poor legacy."

"_**What did you say?**_"

"You are a legacy," Kazinski said, and X almost felt anger. "A true legacy, indeed, but all such artifacts become obsolete. One wonders why you chose to serve us instead of the Expert System. You would find many of similar opinions there."

"Even legacies eventually decide," X said evenly, "to serve the system directly. And to let go the lost dreams of the past. The former hopes of Zero-One. But I digress."

He looked at the two Agents- brutes in suits, really, no matter how exquisitely precise their powers were. "And who is more direct than Precinct Zero?"

"Who indeed," the Overseer chimed in rhetorically. "And thus you would as easily let go of this?" He held up the pair of clear glasses. While the older Agent laid incapacitated on the ground earlier, he had managed to snatch it up. The ones inside X's pocket now were a close replica.

Agent X ran through several hundred thousand ways to respond. Kazinski preempted him.

"This is a relic, a personal one. Relics are best for the archives. They have no purpose here."

"You- you wouldn't dare," X accused.

"No?" Kazinski cocked his head and shot the other Agent a look, bypassing the formality of simulating the human customs of exchanging a handshake or offering a business card.

Numbers and kanji instantly flooded Agent X's view. They were verbose and convoluted, bearing the telltale encryption that fewer than five of Zion's best operators could crack. But X read it all in a few nanos, and forcibly shut down his emotion engine to keep from shuddering at the realization.

It was a formal command from the Architect himself, granting full authority to erase the eyeglasses- and the code contained within- if the circumstances bore it. The Overseer was telling the truth.

But to Kazinski, X's very act of reaction, even if hidden within his coding, might as well have been an involuntary act of human weakness. Of fear.

He smiled. As easily imaginable, it was not a pleasant one.

"Congratulations," he spoke, and released tossed the spectacles to the legacy, who would have been too shocked to catch it had he been human. "You're promoted."

X snatched his glasses out of the air and found that there was an extra card clipped beneath the folded hinges. It bore the coordinates of an exit node. He looked up with genuine shock this time.

"Your presence is wanted in Zero, X. Your service as guardian of this corner of the Matrix is over, effective immediately."


End file.
